Friday, July 31, 2009

We don't really want you to kill a tree this August. Instead, we'd like to regularly use some of our ad space to promote a book a day on reddit. But not just any books, we want to know what your favorites are.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Advertising is one way we keep reddit running and free (well, merch helps, too).

There is no shortage of companies to advertise on reddit, but we want the right ones advertising here. Hence, we've created the Nominate Advertisers Reddit Would Hardly Admonish Looking@ commission.

We've built a private reddit where a select group of reddit volunteers will submit and discuss advertisers who the community would like to see. Our sales team will use this information to approach the advertisers you'd like on reddit.

Just in time for hump day, and as promised, we're giving away another batch of beta keys to Heroes of Newerth. Check here for context. If you missed out on getting a key last week now you've got another chance, and this time we're giving out 300 keys.

we'd like to thank our friends at S2 Games once again for generously providing us with this opportunity.In order to get an access key, all you have to do is go to this comment thread and write in the description/powers of the reddit alien if it were a Newerth hero. The first 300 to post in the comment thread will get a key, 'nuff said.

Here's an example of an existing hero to inspire you; I personally think the alien would fair quite well against a "War Beast."

Rules: Only one entry per user, try and keep it within the confines of the Newerth universe (e.g., no rail guns), and you must be a Reddit user for at least 24 hours prior to the time of this post. Anyone who got a key in the last round is also ineligible.

That's right, Ronald Ernest Paul, M.D. has graciously agreed to be interviewed by reddit. The Republican Congressman from Texas will be answering your top questions. The interview will take place in mid August, and the deadline for questions is August 9th 12pm ET. Ask and vote on the interview questions HERE.

Weekends mean spending your days gaming without fear of being caught at work. And just in time for Friday, we've got something that should give you at least 48hrs of excuses to not go outdoors.

The generous folks at S2 Games have provided us with beta keys to give out for their new game Heroes of Newerth. HoN is a standalone game based on the Warcraft 3 mod Defense of Ancients. It's also multiplatform, so all you Mac users out there don't have to bother with Bootcamp/VMWare (yay!). The same goes for Linux.

In order to get an access key, all you have to do is go to this comment thread and post the most absurd, embarassing, and/or funny username that you're willing to use in HoN. The first 200 to post will get a key - simple as that. Don't worry if you don't get in this time, as we'll be running another challenge next week to give out some more.

Here are the rules: Only one entry per user, no dirty words in your character name (there are no dirty words in Newerth, only dirty orcs), and you must be a Reddit user for at least 24 hours prior to the time of this post.

Good luck, we'll see you in Newerth!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

As you have probably noticed, a few days ago we started highlighting not just your friends, but also the submitter of a link and the moderators of the reddit you're reading. We had been getting numerous requests for submitter highlighting due to the recent popularity of reddits like AskReddit and IAmA, and we had also gotten occasional requests for moderator highlighting, so we pushed out what we thought was an innocent change: friends get an [F] next to their name, moderators get an [M], and the submitter gets a [S]. (If you're all three, the tag would say [F,M,S].)

Well, I'm not ashamed to admit that we made a terrible mistake. The backlash was immediate and forceful, and I'm happy to announce that as of the latest code push we are bowing to overwhelming demand and changing the order to [F,S,M]. I had no idea people on reddit were such big fans of finite state machines. I expect this should remove all objections and make everyone happy, so I'll just-- huh? What? Oh, was there something else?

Right, right, the green moderator highlighting. Contrary to popular conspiracy theory, we weren't trying to create a caste society or intimidate anyone or lay the groundwork for a new moneymaking scheme based on corruption and bribery. We just thought it would be neat for people to know when a post is official, since there can sometimes be confusion. Unfortunately, an unexpected effect of this was the appearance that moderators were in some ways superior to regular contributors or could crush them like a gnat. They're not. Their powers / duties are few and unspectacular. To paraphrase Wikipedia administrivia, being a moderator doesn't mean you wear a crown. It means you carry a mop.

Nonetheless, we realized that there was the appearance of favoritism and the potential for resentment, so we're now going to make moderator highlighting optional and off by default. In the rare case where a moderator really does want to speak officially, they will have the ability to "turn on the [M]" for a particular post or comment.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

We noticed you all are quite handy when it comes to memorable headlines and while we'd only aspired to turn all the best ones into shirts, the fine folks at Spreadshirt have helped us build a way for anyone to do just that.

Just look for the 'shirt' tab on any comments page and you'll discover that headline emblazoned on your choice of American Apparel shirt (in 5 colors and 10 sizes). And for a limited time, you can get a custom shirt for $19.99 (it'll go to $22.99 after that).

And to preempt the custom-headline-just-for-a-shirt creation, we've created a shirts.reddit for all your custom submissions. We'll be tracking the headlines that generate the most shirts and rewarding their creators in sneaky and possibly absurd ways.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The reddit t-shirt design contest has now entered Phase Two of Operations. Competitors submitted over 170 designs. To make voting simpler, we narrowed the submissions down to 25 designs. You can now vote on which of theses 25 works of art would best compliment the fashionable and trandsetting bodies of redditors worldwide. VOTE HERE. Vote early and vote often!

The winner will be announced on July 17th. Thanks to everyone who submitted designs, and thanks to everyone who gave us feedback on the process. We might do another contest in the not so distant future, so any ideas on how to make it better, or what merch to contest-ize, are welcome.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Fast on the heels of last week's iReddit update is our newest version of the app, iReddit Free. As you might have guessed, unlike the first version, this one is free. See if you can figure out the catch.

MissionSnowball Express started in early 2006 with a simple idea: Provide hope and new memories to the children of military fallen heroes who have died while on active duty since 9/11.

America should honor and pay tribute to the children of those military fallen heroes who have died while honorably serving since 9/11. In December of 2006, nearly 900 family members from all across America and the world gathered in Southern California for an unforgettable holiday gathering. Kids and widows discovered they weren't alone. And they found they weren't forgotten.

It was a totally volunteer effort which came together in just a few months to create the largest all-expense-paid gathering for the families of our fallen warriors since 9/11.

In 2007, another unique event was planned for the week after Thanksgiving. This time, over 1,100 children and surviving parents attended as guests of Americans, corporations, and service groups who donated their time, money and resources to create another healing event. Nearly 400 family members attended Snowball Express for the first time.

In 2008 a total of 1437 attendees came to the third annual event with over 900 children attending, many for the first time. Children who had attended previous events rekindled friendships with children met at previous years and new children attending for the first time were mentored by those who had been before. Emotional healing was occurring on many different levels.

MissionOur project is a non-for-profit fundraiser for the Akanksha SchoolProject to fund uniforms and other educational expenses for slumchildren in India. We've gotten lots of press recently, includingcoverage on Kottke.org and Mashable, and in papers like The Guardianand The Miami Herald.

Technology NeedsWhat we need is someone who can code/decipher GRAILS. The entire siteis built in Grails and the front end is mostly designed using CSS. Forthe most part, someone who can tweak the CSS would suffice to makecopy updates on the site etc but for bigger updates aroundfunctionality, we will need someone to get in there and mess with theGrails code.

Remember the family soap business you helped save? Well, we've been partnering with them to bring reddit soap to fruition. While you demanded alien emblazoned soap, you didn't specify a fragrance preference.

Schiff is a supporter of the Austrian School of Economics and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and was an economic adviser for Ron Paul's campaign in the 2008 Republican Party primaries, through which Schiff also expressed support for sound money, limited government, and free market capitalism. You can also follow him on the facebook and the twitter.